Black Gold: Vladimir Putin And The Goldfinger Grand Slam Plan

Ian Fleming made a mistake. Hollywood corrected that mistake. Vladimir Putin learned from that mistake.

Ian Fleming was the man that created super-spy James Bond, and/or was the real life James Bond. In his book Goldfinger, Fleming’s plot involved criminal mastermind and gold dealer Auric Goldfinger breaking into and stealing the gold from Fort Knox in the most audacious robbery in world history. It was an impractical idea on the part of Fleming’s Mr. Goldfinger. When Hollywood produced the follow-up to the sensational first James Bond movie Dr. No, Hollywood corrected Fleming’s error.

The movie Goldfinger explains in detail why the theft of all the gold from Fort Knox is not feasible. Then the Hollywood movie dream makers perfected the plot for Fleming and gave Auric Goldfinger a truly genius plan:

Hooray for Hollywood! The producers of Goldfinger realized, and had the James Bond character in the film explain, that the weight of all that gold was near impossible to transport especially in the time it would take for American security forces to make him put it back. The amount and weight of all the gold in Fort Knox would take too long to load into transports and the weight would require a great many transports capable of carrying all that gold. So Hollywood came up with the answer that works.

Auric Goldfinger in the movie owns a lot of gold. Mr. Goldfinger, in a plan only the scam artist accountants in Hollywood could devise, did not need to literally steal all the gold in Fort Knox to make a financial killing. All Auric Goldfinger had to do was put the gold of Fort Knox out of commission.

That was the genius of “Operation Grand Slam” as Goldfinger named his maniacal plan. Goldfinger’s plan was to explode a nuclear device in Fort Know which would render the gold in Fort Knox radioactive. With the gold in Fort Knox made useless the value of Goldfinger’s gold would rise in price exponentially.

Vladimir Putin understands the value of Goldfinger’s “Operation Grand Slam”. That’s what Vladimir Putin is up to with his Corleone family style move into the middle east.

Smart and strong. Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader is so smart and so strong. Even when Putin pulls down his pants and exposes himself many cannot see what he is up to.

Vladimir Putin is implementing “Operation Grand Slam” on a worldwide basis. What many mistake for weakness, what many mistake as a mistake, is Putin as Auric Goldfinger.

What is Putin’s version of “Operation Grand Slam”? Putin will bring down the oil producers in competition with Russia and thereby make Russia master of energy.

Many of our brightest don’t see what Vladimir Putin is up to. They presume that Putin’s move into Syria and the middle east is about making Russia a player in the middle east once again, or about allies or about something or other, other than what it is.

Across the Russian economy, businesses have shelved investment plans, worried that the ruble might extend its decline if oil prices slide further and that geopolitical tensions could bring new economic headwinds.

The prospect of a prolonged slump is a challenge for the Kremlin, which has relied on rising living standards to boost popular support, as well as foreign investors, who have bet billions on Russia as a growth market.

For the moment, the Kremlin has been dialing back the tensions in Ukraine, which could lead to an easing of the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe over the crisis there.

Russian officials say the economy has hit bottom; business executives are unpersuaded. Capital investment declined 6 percent in the first eight months of this year. Many companies have cash – corporate profits are up 38 percent this year, boosted mainly by the drop in the ruble – they just aren’t ready to spend it.

“Businessmen and ordinary people have formed strong negative expectations,” says former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, compounding the impact of sanctions and the plunge in oil prices. “That induces capital outflows and leads to greater economic contraction.”

Even if the economy recovers in the next few years, growth will be so slow that Russia’s share of world output will still shrink to the lowest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union, erasing the gains of President Vladimir Putin’s 15-year rule, he says.

Already, budget pressures forced the government to cut or delay parts of the 20-trillion-ruble military modernization that Putin has made a top priority in his drive to rebuild Russia’s global might.

The premise of the bright set is that Putin has taken more than he can chew. The mistaken premise is that Russia is weak and weakening and Putin is only making it worse.

We’ll stipulate that the Russian economy is in the toilet and circling. We’ll agree that Vladimir Putin has done some pretty nervy moves. Putin’s decisive moves into the Middle East are analogous to weak Germany’s move into the Rhineland as the Western powers stood by watching, doing nothing. But all the weakness of the Russian economy is icing on the cake for strong Vladimir Putin’s “Operation Grand Slam.”

Three facts motivate Putin. First, two regions utterly dominate world oil markets. The Middle East and Russia together ship 60 percent of all oil traded (45 and 15 percent, respectively). Meanwhile, American firms are by law prohibited from engaging in this vital global marketplace; more on this shortly.

Second, oil matters. It provides 97 percent of the global fuel needs for all the engines that transport everything on land, sea and air. No viable substitutes exist at any price for liquid hydrocarbons at the scale society needs. And the world will consume more oil, not less, as far into the future as it matters for sensible policymaking.

Finally, price matters. Here the U.S. has upset the apple cart. Entrepreneurs using new technologies have unlocked a shocking increase in oil supply. U.S. shale fields have recorded the fastest increase in oil production in history. As a result, crude prices have collapsed from north of $100 to south of $50 a barrel. The emerging consensus? Cheaper oil is the new normal.

Imagine if that 45 percent of middle eastern oil was somehow destroyed or made unusable. Russia’s 15 percent would rise like Goldfinger’s dream.

Syria? Syria is an oil producer but that’s not the strategic importance for strong and smart Putin. Syria is a transit hub pipeline for European oil and gas markets.

The more obvious Vladimir Putin is, the less weak leaders in the West see what he is up to. It’s not about territory ladies and gentlemen. Vladimir Putin does not rely on any of the nonsense formulas the West’s leaders think Putin needs.

So what exactly is Vladimir Putin up to? Putin has moved into Syria. Putin has sent his best troops into Syria. But those are feints. Those are tactics. Diversionary tactics. The real aim of Putin’s “Operation Grand Slam” is the destruction of oil supplies and for that Vladimir Putin only needs one country and one person.

Vladimir Putin needs Iran and Barack Obama.

Iran is an oil producer. Iran also hates, for religious, political, and financial reasons, the powerhouse oil producer monarchies across the Persian Gulf. There is nothing Iran would like better than to take over or destroy the Gulf state monarchies. Enter Vladimir Putin.

Putin now has a presence in the middle east. Putin also has a partner in the middle east – Iran. There’s just one other tool Putin needs to make “Operation Grand Slam”.

Putin needs Barack Obama. Putin has Barack Obama.

Whether because he is incomparably incompetent or willfully treacherous Barack Obama is Vladimir Putin’s greatest ally. We believe Barack Obama is willfully treacherous because no one can be that stupid and useless.

The more he can entrench himself in the Middle East, the more he can exert control over energy markets. With Iran and Iraq in his sphere he can begin to force Europe to rely on him again for supplies.

Prolonged war in the Middle East would serve Putin’s interests perfectly. The deeper and more widespread the conflict, the more world oil and gas prices are likely to rise, helping him stage an economic recovery at home and render the sanctions useless.

That last excerpt is the best understanding of what Putin is up to. But it still falls short. Putin’s “Operation Grand Slam” is about destroying the competition.

Get rid of the Saudis and the gulf oil states and Auric Goldfinger’s master plan to control gold becomes Vladimir Putin’s brilliant control of black gold.

Last Wednesday Vladimir Putin celebrated his 63rd birthday. No need to get Putin a belated gift.

President Vladimir Putin’s military mission in Syria is a sign of Russia’s weakness, not a show of its leadership, says President Obama. Russia has been forced to prop up a teetering Assad regime, he maintains, Russia’s only ally in the region. Mr. Obama speaks at length to Kroft about the situation in Syria and about domestic politics, including his opinions on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, whether his vice president, Joe Biden, will run for president, and his take on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, October 11 at 7:30 p.m ET/PT.

An excerpt from the 60 Minutes interview was broadcast on CBS This Morning. A transcript of that excerpt is below:

Steve Kroft: A year ago when we did this interview, there was some saber-rattling between the United States and Russia on the Ukrainian border. Now it’s also going on in Syria. You said a year ago that the United States– America leads. We’re the indispensable nation. Mr. Putin seems to be challenging that leadership.

President Barack Obama: In what way? Let– let’s think about this– let– let–

Steve Kroft: Well, he’s moved troops into Syria, for one. He’s got people on the ground. Two, the Russians are conducting military operations in the Middle East for the first time since World War II.

President Barack Obama: So that’s– so that’s —

Steve Kroft: bombing the people– that we are supporting.

President Barack Obama: So that’s leading, Steve? Let me ask you this question. When I came into office– Ukraine was governed by a corrupt ruler who was a stooge of Mr. Putin.

Steve Kroft: Right, right, right.

President Barack Obama: Syria was Russia’s only ally in the region. And today, rather than being able to count on their support and maintain the base they had in Syria, which they’ve had for a long time. Mr. Putin now is devoting- his own troops, his own military, just to barely hold together by a thread his sole ally. And in Ukraine–

President Barack Obama: Well– Steve, I got to tell you, if you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in, in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we’ve got a different definition of leadership.

Now that’s global geopolitics at its finest, admin! Here is my question. Forget bumbles the idiot for a moment. Assume that a large measure of competence is located at 1600 Penn. What would the correct move be today?

The wars in the middle-east have always been about the oil. But the newer technologies involve relatively expensive methods of production and the current oil prices do not support it. They are going out of business at the current price of oil. That is, in fact the objective of Saudi’s cheap oil.

We are now seeing the fruits of the Russian’s reputational ascendancy over Obama.

If Putin’s jibes were not enough, the administration seemed ready to do all it could to inflict ridicule on itself.

The Brookings Institution noted president Obama recent offered to turn the Department of Defense into the logistical arm of the UN. Josh Earnest showed decisive the president was by telling reporters that after months of deliberation, the administration had yet to make up its mind on whether to establish a no-fly-zone over Syria.

The Department of Defense announced it was punishing Russia with what the NYT called a “semantic downgrade” to show the administration’s displeasure.

Perhaps most bizarrely U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Michael Ratney told a Syrian-American delegation that the Russian airstrikes on Syria are a sign that U.S. policy is working. What else could he say?

Elliot Abrams writing in the National Review noted that the administration was actually beyond parody recalling that Obama’s idea of genocide prevention was to establish “a new government body called the Atrocity Prevention Board“. People see this and laugh. Obama might survive antipathy. He cannot survive contempt.

The reason why Putin is focusing his efforts to humiliate and mock one single man is simple. President Obama’s penchant for personal rule has created a weakness that the Russian strongman will ruthlessly exploit. Ordinarily presidential prestige wouldn’t be much of a target if the republic’s institutions were working. A president is just another politician who can be replaced if he dies, is incapacitated or is discredited. After all America survived Franklin Roosevelt’s death at the height of World War 2 without a hitch — a transition which astonished Hitler no end. In a constitutional government the president is just another man, replaceable in a way that Russia supreme leader could never be.

Why should Obama’s ego represent such a target of vulnerability? Because Obama has thrown away the gigantic American institutional advantage by pursuing an opaque strategy from the narrowest of White House circles. He has taken foreign policy away from institutions, deprived it of bipartisan consensus in order to centralize it on his desk. Where it should have been diffuse it has become a cult of personality, a weak spot that Putin is relentlessly attacking. He knows that when a Messiah is shown in an ridiculous light, the cult falls.

As Bret Stephens pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, Obama set himself up unwittingly by ridiculing everyone in American government who disagreed with him. He turned the Democratic Party into aging collection of doddering has-beens and demonized all Republican rivals. He closed the doors on his colleagues turning a broad-based system of government into a pogo stick with himself hopping about on it. Now all Putin has to do is kick out the base and down he goes.

David Petraeus testified last month to the Senate Armed Services Committee on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Regarding Syria, the former general and CIA director urged a credible threat to destroy Bashar Assad’s air force if it continues to bomb its own people. He also recommended “the establishment of enclaves in Syria protected by coalition air power, where a moderate Sunni force could be supported and where additional forces could be trained, internally displaced persons could find refuge, and the Syrian opposition could organize.”

But Barack Obama does not agree. At his Friday press conference, the president described such views as “mumbo-jumbo,” “half-baked ideas,” “as-if” solutions, a willful effort to “downplay the challenges involved in the situation.” He says the critics have no answers to the questions of “what exactly would you do and how would you fund it and how would you sustain it.”

America’s greatest living general might as well have been testifying to his shower drain for all the difference his views are going to make in this administration.

So it is with this president. It’s not enough for him to stake and defend his positions. He wants you to know that he thinks deeper, sees further, knows better, operates from a purer motive. His preferred method for dealing with disagreement is denigration. If Republicans want a tougher line in Syria, they’re warmongers. If Hillary Clinton thinks a no-fly zone is a good idea, she’s playing politics: “There is obviously a difference,” the president tut-tutted about his former secretary of state’s position, “between running for president and being president.”

In so doing he narrowed down the image of great United States to the compass of his own person. This created a lucrative target for the ex-KGB operative. Putin knows it is impossible to upend the American colossus, but easy to trip up the tinpot messiah. Having grown to manhood in the Soviet Union, Putin had an exquisite sense of the strengths and weaknesses of the cult of personality.

Clearly Obama can turn aside most of Putin’s psychological schwerpunkt by simply being more humble. There is nothing to prevent the president from returning the formulation of policy to the organs of the Republic — through the Departments, the professional military and the committees of Congress. He can gather input on the widest possible basis, and create as Winston Churchill did in 1940, a national government rather than a cabal of one. By so doing he will turn the contest from Obama vs Putin — which he cannot win — to America vs Putin, which he cannot lose.

But if achieving an American victory were so simple to achieve the possibility must also have crossed the wily Russian’s mind. Does he not stay up nights thinking: suppose Obama has an attack of humility? Then I’m sunk. But he probably took one look at his foe and said: “nah”.

Lu – I’m not sure I’m explaining it well – they don’t find evidence in the real world for “types”, upon which this theory is based. What they find is that different personality characteristics are fall along a unimodal (one hump) continuum; they follow the same normal bell curve as does intelligence.

If they were types, the graph would show multi-modal (multiple humps). So what this theory did, was just draw an arbitrary line through the normal bell curve, and decree that those on the left were x type and those on the right were y type. But they aren’t discrete natural groupings because the data itself is *not* multi-model – they “forced” the types onto the actual real life data.

For an example, if you were to look at outgoing vs introspective personality characteristics – the majority of people will all fall around the mean, while a small percentage of outliers will be on the far left (outgoing) and far right (introspective). Most people are not that different from each other, most having the ability to be outgoing and introspective, based on the situation.

If you’re familiar with the intelligence bell curve, thinking of that might help. It’s unimodal, people falling on the continuum, and most gathered around the mean.

Wbb, Nial Ferguson has written a good article about Henry Kissinger as Sec. of State. Have you read it? If not I’ll try to find it and post it. Hillary may be an innocent little lamb compared to Kissinger.
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Yes, please do. I had not heard much from Nial for over a year. Then I was a the University of Washington on Friday, and see that he has produced a two volume biography on Kissinger.

jbstonesfan
October 12, 2015 at 12:08 am
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In which case she should fire the Obama advisers, and figure when she gets before the committee, one bad turn deserves another. She can tell us where Obama was on the night in question. She can confirm the fact that he did not give the order to save the troops, which is something we now know to a moral certainty.

At point she has nothing to lose in slitting his throat. It is in her interest to do exactly that, by telling the truth under oath about him.

TheRock, first 3 steps if Obama was not the occupant of 1600 would be: (1) strengthen Egypt; (2) make matters clear to the gulf oil states; (3) get rid of Erdogan in Turkey.

The overall stategy would be to have the gulf oil states provide money to Egypt (lots of money) so that Egypt could bring down it’s unemployment and up its economy via huge increases in it’s army. The Egyptian army would then be sort of a mercenary army to squash troublemakers (Yemen/Libya and eventually Hamas/Hezbollah/Syria/Iran) in the region (the role of Egypt since time immemorial). By making clear the threat to the gulf monarchies the money to Egypt could be obtained. Further the gulf states must be forced to stop funding terrorist groups and their Wahabbist kooks (this can be done with the threat of no support unless…).

Also, via talks with the Turkish military Erdogan must be exposed for what he is and removed from power. A responsible Turkey governed along the lines of founder Attaturk could then finally reach an accomodation with the Kurds and a military alliance could then be formed between Turkey-Kurds-Iraq to fight ISIS (and Assad) in Syria.

This would turn the tables on Iran and surround it with Turkey/Kurds/Iraq on the North/East and Egypt/Jordan/gulf states on the West and south. Unrest in Iran could be encouraged via sanctions and if a new green revolution ever took place assistance would be provided (of course the Obama strategy is to give Iran 150 billion to fund terrorism along with eventual nukes).

A real American president would have good relations with Israel so we don’t bother to mention that relationship. However, the U.S. should help Israel develop it’s shale oil potential to keep pressure off of Israel and to send a message to the gulf oil states as well (Russia too).

Obama to Hillary: ‘There’s a Difference Between Running for President and Being President’

President Barack Obama talked about Hillary Clinton’s recent disagreements with his Syria policy by saying “there’s a difference between running for president and being president.”

“Hillary Clinton is not half-baked in terms of her approach to these problems–she was obviously my secretary of state,” said Obama. “But I also think that there’s a difference between running for president and being president.”

We recall very clearly that Obama shills realizing Obama had no experience in running anything constantly justified his “executive” abilities by saying how well he was running his campaign. Now Obama turns this around and attacks Hillary.

THE MIDDLE EAST COLLAPSING, RUSSIAN ON THE MARCH, CHINA MANIPULATING CURRENCY, 93 MILLION PEOPLE OUT OF WORK, AND HE GOES AROUND TELLING PEOPLE HE HAS BEEN A PRETTY GOOD PRESIDENT AND COULD WIN A 3d TERM?

HE IS SICK.

HIS EFFORT TO DISMANTLE THE WORLD ORDER ESTABLISHED IN 1945 HAS CREATED A POWER VACUUM WHICH TERRORISTS HAVE EXPLOITED AND HAS CAUSED THOUSANDS OF DEATHS AND MILLIONS OF REFUGEES/

Sometime this week, President Obama is scheduled to sign an executive order to meet the Oct. 15 “adoption day” he has set for the nuclear deal he says he has made with Iran. According to the president’s timetable the next step would be “the start day of implementation,” fixed for Dec. 15.
But as things now stand, Obama may end up being the only person in the world to sign his much-wanted deal, in effect making a treaty with himself.

The Iranians have signed nothing and have no plans for doing so. The so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has not even been discussed at the Islamic Republic’s Council of Ministers. Nor has the Tehran government bothered to even provide an official Persian translation of the 159-page text.
The Islamic Majlis, the ersatz parliament, is examining an unofficial text and is due to express its views at an unspecified date in a document “running into more than 1,000 pages,” according to Mohsen Zakani, who heads the “examining committee.”

“The changes we seek would require substantial rewriting of the text,” he adds enigmatically.
Nor have Britain, China, Germany, France and Russia, who were involved in the so-called P5+1 talks that produced the JCPOA, deemed it necessary to provide the Obama “deal” with any legal basis of their own. Obama’s partners have simply decided that the deal he is promoting is really about lifting sanctions against Iran and nothing else.

So they have started doing just that without bothering about JCPOA’s other provisions. Britain has lifted the ban on 22 Iranian banks and companies blacklisted because of alleged involvement in deals linked to the nuclear issue.

German trade with Iran has risen by 33 percent, making it the Islamic Republic’s third-largest partner after China.

China has signed preliminary accords to help Iran build five more nuclear reactors. Russia has started delivering S300 anti-aircraft missile systems and is engaged in talks to sell Sukhoi planes to the Islamic Republic.

France has sent its foreign minister and a 100-man delegation to negotiate big business deals, including projects to double Iran’s crude oil exports.

Other nations have also interpreted JCPOA as a green light for dropping sanctions. Indian trade with Iran has risen by 17 percent, and New Delhi is negotiating massive investment in a rail-and-sea hub in the Iranian port of Chah-Bahar on the Gulf of Oman. With help from Austrian, Turkish and United Arab Emirates banks, the many banking restrictions imposed on Iran because of its nuclear program have been pushed aside.

“The structures of sanctions built over decades is crumbling,” boasts Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Meanwhile, the nuclear project is and shall remain “fully intact,” says the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Akbar Salehi.

I love a Frank Capra ending like this one. The son of a bitch gives the store away, gets nothing in return, and now the counter party won’t even sign his agreement. It is essentially a treaty with himself. If Roberts were not on the Court once could argue that there is no quid pro quo, no meeting of the minds, no document evidencing an agreement, no treaty etc. Therefore, an illusory agreement, hence we are not bound. Still he maintains he has been a good president. If he was not floridly delusional he would realize that he has been an unmitigated failure.

You are playing on a different level, admin. Your talents are best utilized next to power.

Back to current events. With Eni’s discovery of a super-giant natural gas reserve in Egypt, Italy is poised to become an alternate supplier of LNG to Europe. Granted, crude will still be the primary hydrocarbon energy used in Europe, but it does give the region an alternative in the face of Goldfinger Putin. It also brings up the possibility that Italy will become a larger player in the European economy. Could that possibly partially offset Putin’s intended semi-cornering of the energy market with the Europeans?

Also, can Jordan be a part of any ME solution? As a fairly moderate states also negatively affected by the Syrian crisis as well as ISIS, are they not another Muslim option that can be tapped in the region? Their military already enjoys good relations with us and the UK, and they have at least 50,000 troops on loan to the UN that can be recalled for efforts towards subduing ISIS.

Finally, could this be the impetus that the US could use to fund/oversee/fasttrack green energy initiatives that can be used in the Europe? Necessity is the mother of invention, and this seems to be as needed as anything we have ever seen.

There is a lot of political insight here. Ed has feelers in Bill’s camp, in Hillaryland, and in the depraved depths of the sulferous Obama mine featuring gargoils like Jarrett. To Hillarys credit, they called here in to upbrade her and she told them to go pound sand. As far as Lynch is concerned she is a malignant person who has no honor.

One cannot objectively speak of a legacy without acknowledging the destruction of the middle class and the collapse of the world order which defined Obama’s tenure. To continue along such a line with candidates like Biden and black Patrick is the path to national suicide.

10/12/15 DNC officer: I was disinvited after call for more debates
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), says she was disinvited from the first Democratic presidential debate after calling for more debates, according to a new report.
“When I first came to Washington, one of the things that I was disappointed about was there’s a lot of immaturity and petty gamesmanship that goes on, and it kind of reminds me of how high school teenagers act,” Gabbard told the New York Times.
“It’s very dangerous when we have people in positions of leadership who use their power to try to quiet those who disagree with them,” Gabbard said. “When I signed up to be vice chair o the DNC, no one told me I would be relinquishing my freedom of speech and checking it at the door.”
sniphttp://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/256640-dnc-officer-i-was-disinvited-after-call-for-more-debates

I guess I have just had a belly full of all these gas bags, who promise everything and deliver nothing. They had this junior representative from Illinois predicting that Ryan will take the speaker position because he is a patriot. What an asshole. Read my lips. Patriots do not do amnesty. Patriots do not elevate the interests of donors above those of the American People. So the terms are clear, that is what traitors do. Got it? This asshole calls this a biblical challenge. He is trying to curry favor with Ryan. Like I said. He is just an asshole.

Putin has now unilaterally committed Russian forces to what the former CIA director General David Petraeus calls the ‘geopolitical Chernobyl’ of Syria. Russia finds itself allied with Syria, Iraq and Iran — a new ‘coalition’ no less, as Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad described it on Iranian state TV last week. How and why did Putin fail to take his own advice about the unintended consequences that breed in middle-eastern quagmires? And most importantly, how has he managed — so far at least — to make Russia’s intervention in Syria into something close to a diplomatic triumph?

Russia’s decisive intervention has left Barack Obama and David Cameron looking weak and confused. When the usually steadfastly patriotic readers of the New York Daily News were asked whether Putin or Obama had ‘the stronger arguments’, 96 per cent said Putin. In Britain even hawks like Sir Max Hastings — no friend of the Kremlin — are arguing that Russia can help beat Isis. And most importantly, Putin stole the show at the United Nations General Assembly last month with an impassioned speech denouncing the whole US-backed project of democracy in the Middle East at its very root.

The Arab Spring has been a catastrophe, Putin argued, and the western countries who encouraged Arab democrats to rise against their corrupt old rulers opened a Pandora’s box of troubles. ‘Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster,’ he told assembled delegates, in remarks aimed squarely at the White House. ‘Nobody cares about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have forced this situation, do you realise what you have done?’ It was quite a sight: a Russian president taking the moral high ground against an American president — and getting away with it. [snip]

In backing Assad, Putin is pushing back not just against the West and its support for democracy, but against the whole idea of popular revolt against authority. [snip]

In Syria the most effective US-backed, anti-Isis troops on the ground are the Kurdish rebels of the YPG — but the US has been powerless to stop its Nato ally Turkey from bombing the YPG in retaliation for a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey that has little to do with the Syrian civil war. Nor has the US been able to protect two of the Syrian Sunni opposition groups that it backs from Moscow’s airstrikes — Russian jets have already hit the front-line positions of Tajammu al-Aaza in Talbiseh and Jaish al-Tawhid (part of the Free Syrian Army) on the outskirts of Al-Lataminah. ‘On day one, you can say it was a one-time mistake,’ a senior US official told the Wall Street Journal after an allied rebel group’s headquarters was destroyed. ‘But on day three and day four, there’s no question it’s intentional.

I almost always agree with everything you say but Cory Booker is NO GOOD!
Hillary’s is in enough trouble. She doesn’t need that.

At this point I am liking Trump more every day. Hillary is not representing my interests and sadly I prefer Trump or any candidate that will end Ocare and illegal immigration and make smarter decisions in the middle east.

7. The outward appearance of confidence—the facade constructed by him in his youth

8. A facade which attracts co-dependent personalites

9. Underneathe the facade what do we find? The angry ossified child.

10. When he claims to have been a good president inspite of keeping the nation in a depression, seeing our middle east strategy fail spectacularly, and having a hot poker shoved up his ass by Putin, this is the facade talking.

11. He will become even more deranged as time goes on.

12. Once he is out of office, insiders will be keen to publish books on what is was like working for a sociopath. Those who do this should be shot. Why? Because the time to have raised that issue is not after the damage has been done, but in the moment so the damage can be prevented.

Obama dismisses Putin as a leader, and gives us his definition of the term. As Kroft points out to Obama repeatedly Putin is challenging good old numb nutz Obama, and he cannot deal with it.
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Obama’s definition of leadership meant abandoning our allies in Baghdad, showing the back of his hand to our friends in Jerusalem, cozying up to the liars and killers in Tehran, waging an effete air campaign against ISIS, and dithering while Syria descended into an almost unimaginable humanitarian crisis.

In the broader region, Obama’s leadership left Libya in ruins and wide open to ISIS penetration, alienated Egypt, decreased our leverage in Pakistan, and accomplished almost nothing in Afghanistan except to turn it into a safe haven for pederasts.

Obama’s disastrous failure to lead in the Middle East has helped to flood Europe with refugees and potential terrorists, encouraging the rise of Putin-like far-right parties throughout NATO and the EU. Meanwhile, Moscow appears set to flagrantly violate Obama’s New START agreement, building up its arsenal of deployed nuclear warheads above the impending caps. Our own arsenal continues to shrink, already well under the 2018 limits.

However, the president does see an opportunity coming soon to turn all this around, telling Kroft that “my definition of leadership would be leading on climate change, an international accord that potentially we’ll get in Paris.”

Donald Trump continues to lead the field nationally in the race to become the Republican nominee for president. Twenty-seven percent of Republican primary voters support Trump, giving him a six point lead over his closest competitor, neurosurgeon Ben Carson (21 percent).

The rest of the Republican field is in single digits, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz inching up into third place with nine percent, followed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with eight percent. Businesswoman Carly Fiorina and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush follow at six percent each. Former Governor Mike Huckabee has also slipped considerably since the summer, from eight percent in August to just two percent today. [snip]

Trump continues to be viewed as the most electable candidate in a general election. Thirty-five percent say Trump has the best chance of winning in November 2016, followed by Ben Carson (18 percent).

Zombie Trump refuses to die. Big Media wasted money and time on the funeral arrangements.

ANOTHER ROUND: OK. This is an odd question that I lobbied for a lot because it’s one of my favorite questions to ask people. If you don’t have an answer, that’s fine, but I will be a little sad. What’s the weirdest thing about you?

HILLARY CLINTON: The weirdest thing about me is that I don’t sweat.

ANOTHER ROUND: Obviously. Best argument for Hillary as a robot: zero sweat.

HILLARY CLINTON: You guys are the first to realize that I’m really not even a human being. I was constructed in a garage in Palo Alto a very long time ago. People think that, you know, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, they created it. Oh no. I mean, a man whose name shall remain nameless created me in his garage.

ANOTHER ROUND: Are there more of you?

HILLARY CLINTON: I thought he threw away the plans, at least that’s what he told me when he programmed me — that there would be no more. I’ve seen more people that kind of don’t sweat, and other things, that make me think maybe they are part of the new race that he created: the robot race.

ANOTHER ROUND: So there’s a cyborg army is what you’re saying.

HILLARY CLINTON: But you have to cut this, you can’t tell anybody this. I don’t want anybody to know this. This has been a secret until here we are in Davenport, Iowa, and I’m just spillin’ my electronic guts to you.

ANOTHER ROUND: And without bourbon.

HILLARY CLINTON: Without any bourbon. Yeah. That’s why I have to wait ‘til the end of the day.

The market for tech start-ups today may be just as speculative as it was during the first bubble, suggested Nick Bilton, technology and business columnist at The New York Times.

“The valuations of companies are just completely out of whack and no one has any idea where these numbers are coming from,” Bilton said in an interview with CNBC, adding that the existence of billion-dollar start-up “unicorns” in tech, is a major sign that we’re in a tech bubble. [snip]

Bilton points to the skyscraper index as further evidence of a new tech bubble.

“At the beginning of every bubble burst or every recession, there’s always been a race to build the biggest skyscrapers in the world. And it’s usually from money that has come in from bubble-gotten gains,” he said. “Often when you have these buildings built, there isn’t anyone to fill them and it starts to be one of the things that causes the bubble to burst,” Bilton posited.

The skyscraper indicating a bubble this time around, according to Bilton, is the Salesforce Tower, which is currently under construction. That skyscraper is expected to stand 200 feet higher than the Transamerica Pyramid, which is currently the tallest building on the San Francisco skyline.

But whether there’s a bubble at risk of bursting or just some high-flying start-ups that need to gear up for a descent, Bilton seems conservative.

Maybe something has changed, but I can’t see Biden being popular. He’s run a couple of times, and IIRC, he’s always down at the bottom, dropping out. What have we heard of any work he has done while vp?

And, Obama saying he would put his support behind Biden if he runs with Patrick (how did we become so beholden to 12% of the population?) – has that ever been done before? It seems like those kind of deals were always done behind closed doors before.

My love for Hillary hasn’t left the station quite yet. I am still loyal to her but am angry that I might have to end up voting for Trump because she is too afraid to stab her enemy in the back like he has done and is still doing to her.

I want her to shake off her fear and be the strong woman she has been all her life until she allowed herself to be beat up, again and again by Obama.

The Chamber of Commerce is purportedly pledging $100 million to defeat conservatives in 2016, or as is being reported, defeating conservatives who might cause heartburn for poor little Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) 55% who apparently cannot stand up to those 40 yapping conservatives.

It is actually a sad statement of leadership from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) 55% that while he fiddles over whether to be Speaker or not, he refuses to stand up and speak out against the Chamber of Commerce threatening to take out conservatives. It makes him look weak.

Unfortunately for the Chamber of Commerce, it is not just the band of 40 conservatives in the House who have problems with the leadership and process. Despite press headlines and punditry complaints, 151 Republicans voted no on the continuing resolution and 167 voted no on the Department of Homeland Security funding this past spring.

The issue is not with the House Freedom Caucus, but with a lack of a policy agenda by House Republican Leaders.

The fact is we do not have a Speaker candidate yet because House Republicans know they cannot form a coalition Speaker with Democrats without being exposed to their base as frauds. The angst and anger the Chamber of Commerce and House Republican Leaders are showing toward the House Freedom Caucus has way more to do with the veneer of “conservative” slowly rubbing off the leadership.

For the longest time, the Chamber of Commerce was where one went to find out who the conservatives were in Congress. But over the last two decades, the Chamber has become a breeding ground for corrupt cronyism. The organization rallies to large businesses and their interests at the expense of the innovator and start up. Government deals are the rule of the day at the Chamber, hence their strong insistence on amnesty proposals, the Export-Import Bank, and various spending programs.

The Chamber and its allies can write so many large checks that Republican leadership interests have largely aligned with the Chamber. As social media has risen and with it outside conservative groups willing to raise awareness of the Chamber’s backroom dealings, it has become harder and harder for the Chamber to get its way automatically in Washington.

This $100 million threat is more a temper tantrum at their exposure than a demand that conservatives fall in line. Conservatives will not fall in line and Chamber money will just be seen as a badge of corruption when candidates take their cash.

They know that and they know this — if Republicans move further left and ally with Democrats on a Speaker, it will make those Republicans extremely vulnerable in primaries come 2016.

Much has been made of the Kroft interview of the Grand Messiah. In addition to throwing Hillary under the bus, he bristled as he was questioned closely about the failure of his middle east strategy and the challenged Putin presents to his ah er non leadership, leadership. He began by being dismissive, but by the end of the interview he was angry. One writer found this response terrifying, whereas I . . I found it predictable, understandable and thoroughly amusing. Seven years ago, I was terrified as I realized the kind of sociopath we were dealing with. Nobody would listen to me then, so I dropped it. Seven years is too long to stay terrified, but there is no statue of limitations on being amused. And the why of it is what amuses me most. There are two things that matter to the Jackal in chief–just two. One of them is being recognized as the most powerful man in the world. Therefore growing suspicions among the cognicenti that as events unfold he is in danger of becoming in the jail house sense of the term, Putin’s little bitch. The other thing he hankers for is to be the great liberator of the Muslim world, whereas now if you took a vote on the Arab street, the masses prefer a mench like Putin to a castrade like Obama. Only big media loves Obama, and even if that love affair is growing cold, they are stuck with him til death doth they part.

wbboei
October 13, 2015 at 1:49 am
Speaking of corrupt cronyism, the TTIP is getting exposed in the EU even if the US media won’t do it.
“This puts her (Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmströmin) charge of trade and investment policy for all 28 EU member states, and it is her officials that are currently trying to finalise the TTIP deal with the USA.

What is TTIP? And six reasons why the answer should scare you

In our meeting, I challenged Malmström over the huge opposition to TTIP across Europe. In the last year, a record three and a quarter million European citizens have signed the petition against it. Thousands of meetings and protests have been held across all 28 EU member states, including a spectacular 250,000-strong demonstration in Berlin this weekend.

The entire scheme is run by globalist lobbyists which infest DC and Brussels. The EU bureaucracy doesn’t even hide it anymore. The US CoC is almost to that point also when they brazenly say they will remove anyone who opposes them from elective office. These criminals need their backs broken, symbolically of course.

When put to her, Malmström acknowledged that a trade deal has never inspired such passionate and widespread opposition. Yet when I asked the trade commissioner how she could continue her persistent promotion of the deal in the face of such massive public opposition, her response came back icy cold: “I do not take my mandate from the European people.”
—————–
Bureacrats are all the same the world over.

Compare the response of former Secretary of Heath Education and Commerce diva Kathleen Sebelius:

When asked why in the face of strong public opposition she has not resigned.

To which that diva for the ages responded: the people who I work for have not asked me to do that.

The clear implication being this: the bureacrat works for the politician, not the public.

If you want more proof that in the big government world the people don’t count consider this.

An attorney I know went to work for the Washington State Attorney General’s office in 1972.

At that time, he was told that his boss was the public.

He left that office to pursue private practice in 1992.

At which time he noted wryly: my new boss told me your client is not the public.

Your client is that bureaucrat down the hall.

Who in turn reports to some agenda driven politician who reports to his donors.

Time and again we find the same thing: an agency problem.

The agent is not only not responsible to the principal.

Its even worse.

The agent looks for ways to betray the principal in order to enrich himself.

In the big picture sense, globalists have captured the political system in both parties.

In the case of republicans, blame the Chamber of Commerce—Tom Donahue.

In the case of democrats, blame Felix Rohatten–a confidante of Ted Kennedy.

And their game is to erase sovereignty, the constitution and our culture.

And to place the economic burden of this transition on the American middle class.

Who they openly accuse of consuming too much of the world’s wealth, energy etc.

This is manifest in this debate over global warming

This phenomenon is clear from their computer models, but not from empirical data.

Yet they push it and just today in Reuters an article by some propagandist.

By 2100 millions of Americans will be underwater–he says

Yet, “some” Americans are skeptical.

Does this perhaps coincide with Obama’s characterization of ISIS as junior varsity

And his characterization at West Point no less as the greatest threat facing the world.

Makes you want to chuck those second lieutenant and rush for a gofer job at NOAH.

And behind all this you have the spectre of Soros and Chairman Mo plotting a green energy exchange.

I saw this coming seven years ago, at the time of the Arab Spring speech. A community organizer plunging us head long into the realm of Hades, with big media cheering him along all the way, and that feeling in the air at the time of the French revolution described by the English Poet Wordsworth: bliss what it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven. As you might infer, I am not a Wordsworth fan. And I am certain that my concerns for the nation were felt by many others, but not by a majority. For the truth is we have no power, and if ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise. The Trump candidacy gives us some hope that some measure of equilibrium will be restored. Otherwise, this is nothing more than a race to the bottom for the middle class, and for blacks but they will never put it all because they are so easily diverted by false claims of racism.

I must say the other factor was an early assessment of Obama’s mental state, which was described early on by a doctor who used to blog here as textbook sociopath, followed by a pronouncement to the same effect, followed by the most comprehensive assessment of all concerning Obama by an Israeli who is the word’s leading expert on narcissism, who provided the framework of the abandoned child who constructs the all powerful fantasy of himself which Obama referred to as King Obama, the attraction that false self had for co dependents, cultists if you prefer, and beneathe all of that the angry ossified child. That is what we have been dealing with for seven long years, and as that expert predicted, there will come a point where the angry ossified child will emerge and then we will have hell week. The early signs of this, perhaps, are that interview. The catalyst is the displacement of Obama by Putin on the world stage, and his inability to counteract that which will drive him deeper into the realm of delusion. Some did not see this until the Kroft interview, whereas I have sensed it, seen it, for the past seven years. But what good does it do, when you cannot get anyone’s attention. The only consolation I can hope for in all this is when events take him down, his big media enablers will go down with him. It would be the greatest tragedy of all if they were permitted to survive.

Shadowfax
October 13, 2015 at 12:36 am
I never dreamed that after waiting so long for Hillary to run for Preaident, AGAIN, that I would be this angry, disappointed in her and pist at everything going on in politics right now.

I expected to be excited and campaigning for her.

I am glad we at least get to see Trump taking up the fight, but his position with the GOP makes it seem like a mini version of 2008 all over again.

Thank God you are still keeping this blog together Admin, or I would be crawling into a cave right now.

Carley needs to get out of the race, she is worthless. Jeb needs to spend all the Republican’s money and lose the race.

Wbb, I know you’re no fan of Cannon, who often lands a little too far to the left for most of us. I’m not crazy about him either. But in this article, he seems to have seen a sliver of light about Obama. None of us here will be surprised that Obama furthers the cause of fundamentalist, crazy-ass radical Islamists. However, apparently, some people are still working through the learning curve about Obama and MSM. I didn’t post the whole article which includes research about various radical groups Obama has supported.

________ Monday, October 12, 2015

The right-wing nuts are right: Obama really IS trying to impose Sharia law!

Just when we began to think that Obama had abandoned his sick dream of regime change in Syria, we learn that the administration is sending 50 tons of supplies to Syrian rebels.
C-17s, accompanied by fighter escort aircraft, dropped small arms ammunition and other items like hand grenades in Hasakah province in northern Syria to a coalition of rebels groups vetted by the US, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.
There’s that word again! “Vetted.”

If you’ve been following the Syrian situation for the past couple of years, you’ll know that word well. We are constantly being told that “our” rebels are vetted. Every so often, journalists reveal that “our” vetted rebels are working with (or giving weapons to) Al Qaeda or ISIS — at which point, the administration says “Oopsie!” We are then assured that from now on, “our” rebels will receive some extra-special super-duper vetting.

Here’s an important fact which CNN hides from you: It doesn’t take much effort to link the Syrian Arab Coalition to extreme jihadis.

Don’t take my word for it: Fire up Google and take a close look at the groups which make up that coalition. In nearly every case, one small tug of the string is all it takes. You’ll be led straight into a dark world populated with religious extremists, drug smugglers, mad bombers and other lovelies.

Hillary’s abuse by Obama is similar to a married woman that is beaten by her husband but afraid to move out and be on the run with her small children.

These women cover up their bruises with makeup and make excuses for their changed behavior. They have been broken by the abuser, and in time, they either die or get soooooooo angry they finally strike back.

May Hillary’s inner Kracken reappear sooner rather than later. She needs to bust him in the chops and give him a swift kick to the groin.

Maj. Bradley Podliska is preparing a lawsuit against the House Select Committee on Benghazi for firing him, alleging that the panel has unfairly targeted Hillary Clinton in its investigation of the 2012 attacks.

“I knew that we needed to get to the truth to the victims’ families. And the victims’ families, they deserve the truth – whether or not Hillary Clinton was involved, whether or not other individuals were involved,” Podliska says on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “The victims’ families are not going to get the truth and that’s the most unfortunate thing about this.”

The former investigator, currently on active duty in Germany, was fired 10 months after joining the committee, which has spent $4.6 million on the investigation so far. Podliska is now preparing to sue the select committee, alleging that he was unjustly fired for his efforts to push for a comprehensive investigation, opposing the biased probe into Clinton. The partisan efforts, he explains, intensified after news broke that Clinton was using her private email server instead of the government-issued on

“He took a lot of questions he knew were going to be tough,” said McKinnon. “Let me clear up one thing. Many people think No Labels is bringing together people with the same views. It is just the opposite. Our goal is to bring people together. We have tea party members. We brought together Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.”

McKinnon said he had never seen anything like Trump in his 30-40 years in political life.

“All candidates, they get into a room and people ask questions and they want to pander,” said McKinnon. “They want to make the questioner happy. He doesn’t. He doesn’t care. That is so refreshing, and it is authentic. That’s what people really hunger for in American politics.”

The convention, held in Manchester, N.H., also attracted GOP candidates Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie, George Pataki, and John Kasich, with video call-ins from Democrats Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders, and Jim Webb from Las Vegas, where they are preparing for Tuesday night’s first Democratic primary debate.

However, Sanders did not take audience questions, reports The Daily Beast, causing audience members to complain about his response.

Sanders didn’t take questions and delivered his now familiar stump speech. An open mic heard over C-SPAN picked up an audience member complaining, “I waited all this time for that?”

But overall, Trump stole the show with his frank, often disputed answers to questions from the centrist crowd. /

In addition to pitching his campaign, Trump also drew in the audience by telling about the work it took to build some of his most iconic properties, including his Manhattan golf course, which was built in four months after he “got tough with everybody … you can do these things; it’s about leadership.”

The president’s reluctance to respond assertively is signaling U.S. weakness and indecision, some officials say.

Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Syria is creating new rifts inside an exhausted and in some cases demoralized Obama national security team, where officials pushing for bolder action see the president as stubbornly unwilling to assume new risk as he nears his final year in office.

Current and former Obama officials say the president’s reluctance to respond more assertively against Putin is signaling U.S. weakness and indecision. “We’re just so reactive,” said one senior administration official. “There’s just this tendency to wait” and see what steps other actors take.

Putin’s direct military intervention — following years of indirect support for Syrian ruler Bashar Assad — has broken any momentum Obama had after sealing his nuclear deal with Iran. Secretary of State John Kerry had hoped to follow through on the agreement by working with Iran and Russia to win a political settlement in Syria, a goal that now seems fanciful. Adding to the frustration is the high-profile failure of the Pentagon plan to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels, which is being downsized.

“They’re on their back feet right now,” said a former senior Obama foreign policy hand. [snip]

Sources familiar with administration deliberations said that Obama’s West Wing inner circle serves as a brick wall against dissenting views. The president’s most senior advisers — including National Security Adviser Susan Rice and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough — reflect the president’s wariness of escalated U.S. action related to Syria or Russia and, officials fear, fail to push Obama to question his own deeply rooted assumptions. “Susan and Denis channel him,” says a former administration official who has witnessed the dynamic.

That dynamic is not new. But Putin’s escalation has combined two of Obama’s biggest foreign policy headaches — a newly aggressive Russia and Syria’s civil war — into one throbbing migraine.

In senior meetings, some of Obama’s top national security officials have pressed for a bolder response to Putin’s muscle-flexing in Syria. They include Kerry, who has argued for establishing a no-fly zone in Syria, an option Obama recently suggested is “half-baked.”

A former Cold War nuclear deterrence expert, Defense Secretary Ash Carter has fretted that the U.S. isn’t standing up firmly to Putin’s provocations. And CIA Director John Brennan has complained that Putin is bombing Syrian rebel fighters covertly backed by his agency with seeming impunity.

“The optics are that we’re backing off,” said a former Obama official who handled foreign policy issues. “It’s not like we can’t exert pressure on these guys, but we act like we’re totally impotent.”

Obama’s refusal to take firmer action against Moscow has increasingly isolated several of his administration’s Russia specialists, who almost uniformly take a harder line toward Putin than does the president himself. They include Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs; Celeste Wallander, the National Security Council’s senior director for Russia and Eurasia; and Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. Farkas’ recent announcement that she will exit the Obama administration this fall raised eyebrows among officials aware of her frustration that Obama hasn’t responded more forcefully to Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his support for pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east. (Farkas has told friends that she is not resigning over policy disputes.)

Obama did face a public challenge in the form of an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, in which the president grew visibly annoyed as interviewer Steve Kroft pressed him on the modest results of his campaign against the Islamic State and on whether Putin was successfully “challenging your leadership.”

Standing his ground, Obama repeated his argument that it would be a mistake to overreact to Putin, who he says is acting out of weakness, and that the Syria morass defies the kind of “silver bullet” solution sought by his critics.

The critics increasingly include Democrats. White House officials are said to have reacted with irritation when Hillary Clinton proposed a Syria no-fly zone earlier this month, lending credibility to an idea mainly backed by Republicans. Kerry has also pushed for a no-fly zone in northern Syria along Turkey’s border, which could provide a humanitarian haven for refugees — but would also create a de facto challenge to Russia’s freedom in the skies.

This is not the first time Obama has dug in against national security officials urging bolder action, both in Syria and against Putin’s Russia.

In late 2012, Clinton, then secretary of state, joined CIA Director David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in presenting Obama with a plan to arm and train a moderate Syrian rebel force. Obama vetoed the idea. (He did approve a modest covert CIA training program in 2013 after the Syrian regime used chemical weapons, and last year he approved the $500 million Pentagon training program that is being downsized after a sputtering start.)

The pattern repeated earlier this year, when a consensus emerged among Obama’s top national security advisers, including Kerry and then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, that the U.S. should supply lethal military aid to Ukraine, including shoulder-fired Javelin anti-tank missiles. During his February confirmation hearing, Carter said that he, too, was “very much inclined” to provide heavier weapons to Ukraine. Again, Obama knocked down the idea, worrying that Putin would simply further escalate in response.

Some officials argued that Obama should keep the possibility of supplying of lethal weapons as a card to play against Putin in the event the Russian took newly provocative steps — which he now has in Syria.

But there are no signs Obama is seriously reconsidering the idea.

Obama’s trash talk In a sign of the complexities the Obama team faces, few officials can be easily placed in a neat hawk or dove box. Kerry, for instance, has long favored a no-fly zone in Syria. But he frustrates the administration’s Russia hawks, who prefer to isolate Putin, with his reliable belief in the benefits of continued dialogue with Moscow. [snip]

But even officials who grumble that Rice and McDonough discourage dissenting views — sometimes by invoking exaggerated, straw-man versions of recommendations — concede that there is plenty of discussion in national security meetings at the White House. Just little action.

As one of the former officials put it: “This is driven by one man, and one man only, and it is Barack Obama.”

Michelle might want to gently tap the president on the shoulder and remind him “umm, Barack, you’re not in the faculty lounge any more. You’re actually, uh, President and Commander-in-Chief. So you don’t get to criticize your own failed policies as if you’re not responsible for them. They’re, umm, your policies, you know?”

Commenting on President Obama’s 60 Minutes interview in which he said he was “skeptical from the get-go” about his administration’s failed policy of training Syrian rebels, WaPo’s David Ignatius on today’s Morning Joe called the president’s reaction “weird,” adding “he spoke almost like a man vindicated when a policy of his own administration had collapsed in failure. And he was, he took the line almost of, see, I told you so.”

Have a look at the clip from the 60 Minutes interview. President Obama is taking “leading from behind” to a surreal new level in which he gets to hang back and second-guess the failures of his own administration. [snip]

STEVE KROFT: You have been talking a lot about the moderate opposition in Syria. It seems very hard to identify. And you talked about the frustrations of trying to find some and train them. You had a half-a-billion dollars from congress to train and equip 5,000, and at the end, according to the commander of CENTCOM, you got 50 people, most of whom are, are dead or deserted. He said you’ve got four or five left.

BARACK OBAMA: Steve, this is why I’ve been skeptical from the get-go about the notion that we were going to effectively create this proxy army inside of Syria.

. . .

WILLIE GEIST: It cost about $500 million for five trained fighters. And he said you know what, I didn’t really like that policy from the beginning. And Steve Croft asked him, well then why did you go forth with it? Are you surprised at the way the president has talked so openly about his own disdain for that policy?

DAVID IGNATIUS: It was weird to me, Willie, in that he spoke almost like a man vindicated when a policy of his own administration had collapsed in failure. And he was, he took the line almost of, see, I told you so.

They are claiming they have a right to be here because they are displaced indigenous people. Yea. So I pointed out to them that they are speaking SPANISH. The Coyote’s have quite a Tail. And these people are backwards. One woman claims to be here, self-employed in doing a job that endangers her health and brags that somehow makes her better than “people like” us who would not do such a job. Here come the sweatshops.

Shadowfax
October 13, 2015 at 4:35 pm
———————-
What Trump is doing is bringing the whispers and rumors out of the darkness and into the public discourse. In a real way, it sets him up to be directly addressed should he ever face Hillary in a debate. He is saying what a lot of Americans are thinking. And Hillary needs to address it.